By Kristen No one understands Roman numerals anyway Gupton-Williams

Several hours later, Cid returned to Tifa and Vincent's room. Before he got the chance to knock more than once, Tifa quickly opened the door and pointed toward the couch. Cid looked in to see Vincent sitting asleep, with the baby still held in his arms.

Cid looked down at Tifa, and cocked an eyebrow. "You let him touch the kid?"

She playfully reached out and hit his arm. "Come on, they've been great. The baby hasn't cried all night."

"Yeah, he's probably too scared." Cid smiled, despite his words.

Tifa let Cid pass inside and then closed the door. She kept her voice low, as to not wake up Vincent. "So, how did it go?"

He shrugged. "We just sat and talked. Turns out I knew her dad."

"Oh," Tifa smiled, "so it went well?"

"All considering, I think so," he sighed. "I would have felt bad to have done anymore than talk."

"I understand." Tifa could see the pain within him. "But do you think that maybe you'll see her again?"

"I don't see why not." Cid shoved his hands into his pockets.

"What's she like?"

"Not afraid of anything." He smiled. "She's married to her job."

"And you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" Tifa laughed.

His smiled disappeared. "You're funny."

"At least it was good for you to know that there are women out there who are interested."

"I guess." He looked into her eyes.

Tifa saw something there that at once made her feel somewhat uncomfortable. She gave him a fleeting smile and then went over to Vincent. She reached down and shook him gently. "Cid's here, time to give him back the baby."

Vincent's left eye cracked open slightly, and he held the baby up to her. He was too tired to do anything more.

Tifa took the infant and turned back to Cid.

Cid saw his bag of baby things sitting on the floor and picked it up before accepting the infant from Tifa. "Thanks."

"Anytime." Tifa's smile returned.

While balancing the baby and bag in his arms, Cid leaned forward and managed to give Tifa a quick kiss on the cheek. "See you tomorrow."

"Okay." She opened the door for him and then closed it once he was gone. She turned back to Vincent, to see that he was asleep again. Tifa went over and knelt before him, placing her hands upon his knees. "Vincent?"

Again, his left eye cracked open. "Huh?"

"Time for bed."

His eye closed for a moment, and then they both opened. He stretched out of habit, not really needing to with his mechanical body. He slowly got up and then pulled Tifa to her feet. Vincent walked over to the bed and began to shed his clothing.

Tifa soon did the same and they went to bed, quickly falling asleep.

***

In a cabin just down the hall, Jeanine and Jaras were sitting on their respective twin beds talking. When the conversation had turned to his reunion with Vincent and Tifa, Jeanine could tell that there was something that he wasn't telling her. "Jaras, what's wrong?"

He looked away from her, his previous infatuation with Tifa embarrassing him. "For a while, I thought that I was in love with Tifa, even though she was to be married to my father."

Jeanine wasn't the jealous type, and smiled. "Really?"

"Yes." Jaras was happy that she hadn't flown off the handle at his confession. "I know now that I was just feeling attached to her, since she was the only female that I had ever met for whom I held some memory. I'm over it now though, I assure you."

Jeanine nodded; knowing that his take on the situation was probably accurate. "At least you didn't do anything like stop their wedding."

Jaras at once turned red, remembering how he had almost done just that. There were also his drunken statements to Tifa following the ceremony that he thought of. "No, I didn't go that far. Besides, now I know that I wasn't in love with her anyway. You have to know someone a long time before you can truly fall in love with them. I had only known her for a matter of a few weeks. Like I said, it was just some stupid infatuation."

She was touched by the genuine innocence he was showing in regards to his feelings and relationships. "Well, I hope you're not just going through some fleeting infatuation with me."

"Of course not." Jaras had to smile. "I've known you for years, and I've actually liked you for a long time."

Jeanine blushed a little at his words. Since the day that her father had introduced her to Jaras, she had found him striking and alluring. The fact that he had been Sephiroth was clear to her from the beginning, even though her father never approached the subject with her until recently. Despite his past, she had been attracted to him from day one.

Jaras saw her reaction, and couldn't help himself. He rose from his bed and came to sit at her side. He placed one of his hands beneath her chin and brought it up, soon letting his lips meet hers.

Jeanine didn't protest in the least and gave in. She herself hadn't had much experience with men and felt a little awkward at first, but didn't pull away. When Jaras sat back after a few moments, she just smiled at him.

He looked into her eyes, searching for approval. "You didn't mind that, did you?"

Her smile returned. "No, not at all. I think I need practice though."

"Well, I haven't got anything better to do." He grinned back at her.

Jeanine quickly leaned forward and kissed him again. They didn't leave each other's arms for the rest of the night, and eventually fell asleep together on her small bed.

***

The following day, the airship came back to rest at the ASRIO base and everyone filed off. Brad quickly went and got the helicopter fired up, in order to take Jaras and Jeanine back to Mideel. While Brad prepared the chopper, Tifa, Vincent, Angel, Reno, Jaras, Jeanine, and Cid stood together on the airfield to bid their good-byes.

Jaras looked at his father. "I hope that after your surgery that you and Tifa will come to see us in Mideel."

"We will," Vincent smiled back, despite the fact he wished Jaras would stay.

Tifa smiled at Jeanine. "You keep him in line, all right?"

"That shouldn't be too hard." Jeanine laughed.

Brad shouted out at them over the helicopter's engine, "Time to go!"

Angel went forward and embraced her brother. "Keep in touch."

"I will." Jaras held her for a moment, and then went over to Vincent and Tifa. He briefly embraced his father, and then did the same to Tifa.

While in his arms, Tifa whispered into his ear, "Good luck with you and Jeanine."

"Thanks." Jaras stepped back and smiled at them. He then went to Cid and outstretched his hand. "Mr. Highwind."

Cid shifted the baby into his left arm and accepted the handshake. "Take care."

Jeanine and Jaras then walked the short distance to the chopper and boarded. Everyone remained in place and watched as it lifted off into the sky.

Reno was the first to break the silence that fell over them. "He still gives me the fuckin' creeps."

Angel slapped him on the arm. "Can you at least try to be nice every once in a while?"

He raised his hands defensively. "I'm sorry, I was sort of programmed to be afraid of him, all right? Nerd or not, he's still scary."

Cid laughed to himself. "I'll second that."

"Oh you guys!" Tifa crossed her arms over her chest. "Honestly."

Quigley, who had run from the airship and into the lab upon landing, came back out onto the airfield and approached them. "Vincent, good news!"

He turned to face the scientist who was, in an uncharacteristic moment, very excited. "What is it?"

Quigley gathered himself. "Okay, so I just went and checked on the stem cells that I had started to culture before we left, and I'm happy to say that they are growing and dividing like mad."

Tifa stepped forward. "So what's that mean?"

"It means that I now have a large enough population of cells to separate. I'll keep some to form the stem cell grafts that he will need to patch into the nervous system of his new body, and the others I can signal to begin differentiating and place in the accelerator." Quigley was ecstatic with his success.

"You can start growing his body?" Tifa asked, knowing that it was a little silly.

"Yes." Quigley pulled a calculator from his pocket and hit some keys on it. "If everything goes well from here on out, I'd say we'll be putting you into your new body in about four months."

Vincent's eyes grew wide. "Four months? That's it?"

"Yeah, go figure, the accelerator is way better than Porter and I had initially hoped. In just the few days we were gone for the funeral, we managed to grow a lab rat to complete maturity within it." Quigley beamed with pride.

Vincent knit his brow. "You're growing rats in my accelerator?"

"You do understand that we had to test it before committing to putting your cells within it." Quigley put his calculator back into his pocket.

"Just wash it before you put my cells in there. I've seen The Fly and I don't want to come out with rat parts." Vincent was only half joking.

"Don't worry, it will be fine." Quigley turned away to go back inside. "Stop by the lab later today. I need to give you another dose of the Chaos drug."

***

A few hours later, Vincent and Tifa left their room and headed down to Quigley's lab as they had been asked to do. They went through the door and found Porter inside along with Quigley, working together over a computer. Porter's dog broke the quiet of the laboratory with a baying bark, alerting his master to the fact that they had visitors.

Quigley got up and smiled. "Just a sec."

They watched as he left the room and then Porter struggled up and came over. "Check this out."

Tifa and Vincent just stared as Porter reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a large white lab rat.

Tifa immediately giggled and clapped her hands together. "Can I hold it?"

"Sure," he said, passing the rodent to her. "That's what we managed to grow over the last few days. The accelerator is working perfectly."

Vincent wrinkled his nose as he watched Tifa kiss the rat on the head. "That's gross."

Tifa looked up at him, a hurt expression on her face. "No it's not, look, he's so cute!"

Vincent took a step back as Tifa held out the rat toward him. "It's a rat."

"You're scared of it, aren't you?" Tifa asked, growing amused as she perched the animal on her shoulder.

He didn't answer, and simply looked back at Porter. "Don't put another one of those things in my accelerator."

"It's not really yours, you know." Porter smiled, pointing over at the large machine a short distance away. "Quigley and I did build it."

"Look, I don't want my body growing in a vat of rat leavings, okay?" Vincent knit his brow, wishing that he had never been told about the rat in the first place.

Quigley returned, with a syringe in his hands. "Time for your medication. I suppose you don't have an I.V. anymore."

"No, they took that out right after the last dose of that stuff you gave me." Vincent said, growing unhappy with the notion of being subjected to an intravenous injection that would undoubtedly be given into his neck.

"Well then, I guess I have to do it the hard way. Take off your shirt." Quigley came closer.

"Why, aren't you going to give it here?" Vincent asked, pointing to his jugular vein.

"No, I'm sure there's an injection port somewhere inside you. Hojo built them into everything." Quigley sighed.

"You mean to tell me that I've gotten how many shots and intravenous lines shoved into me for no real good reason?" Vincent grew angry. "Even Hojo drew my blood from my neck, why didn't he just use this port if I've in fact got one?"

"Hey, I don't know why that nut did the things he did, but if you'd hurry up and get your shirt off, we could find out whether or not you have the port in question." Quigley knew that Vincent's anger wasn't directed at him.

"Fine." Vincent pulled off his shirt.

Quigley came over and popped open a panel on Vincent's chest. After looking around for a few moments, he found what he was looking for. "There it is. Here goes."

Vincent closed his eyes as Quigley injected him with the drug. For a second he thought that maybe he should have sat down, in light of the fact that he had become dizzy the last time this had been done, but the medication washed over him quickly and he felt no ill effects.

Quigley then turned away and tossed the empty syringe into a wastebasket. "Anyway, Porter and I will be getting your cells in there by tonight. There will be a visible development within a few days for you to see."

Vincent had an odd thought. "If you're growing this body without a brain in the head, what's to keep it the right shape? No offence, but I don't want my brain in some weird shaped skull."

Quigley laughed to himself, more than a little impressed with Vincent's insight. "Of course not. If we didn't have the skull form properly, then we would never be able to fit your brain in there. There will be brain matter in the skull to keep it the proper shape, but we will be altering the DNA of the cells to make sure that what forms isn't functional. We are not going to make a complete functioning human just to kill to give you the body of."

"When you alter the DNA of the brain cells though, you will be doing it in a manner specific enough as to not affect the genetic make up of the rest of my body, right?" Vincent asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Right." The scientist fell back into a chair near a computer console. "Don't worry, you're DNA will be intact so that your children will be absolutely normal."

The technicality of all that was going on was a little beyond Vincent's comprehension, but he knew that he had no choice but to trust Quigley on this despite the fact that Hojo had corrupted Vincent's trust in the scientific community long ago. "I'll have to take your word on this. If anything goes wrong though, do know that you will be the first one I come after."

"That's why I'm putting a failsafe inside you so that I can turn you off if you get out of hand," Quigley joked.

Vincent's eyes narrowed. Thanks to his past, he was not amused with such a jest. "Excuse me?"

Quigley at once knew that he had gone too far and raised his hands defensively. "Sorry."

Vincent tensed his jaw, and turned back to Tifa, who was still toying with the rat she had been handed earlier. "Give that thing back so that we may go."

Tifa immediately pouted. "I want to keep him."

"Over my dead body." Vincent started to head for the door.

Tifa walked over to Porter and handed him the rodent. "Keep this in case Vincent dies, okay?"

Porter winked at her and accepted the small animal back. "Sure thing."

Vincent opened the door and mumbled, "not funny."